"Yo! No way!" Lars cried out as he watched his laser beam miss the target. That was supposed to be the killing blow, yoooooo!

Of course, Lars didn't actually miss. After all, his 200% accuracy was incapable of such goofs. No, it was Apprentece! That dude sidestepped the shot toward the very end!

What a pro, yo! Lars thought. Though, I guess this one is partially on me, haha...

Apprentece deserved some credit for juking that shot, but he only managed to do it because Lars went for the head. If Lars shot the Orc’s back instead, then a last-moment sidestep like that wouldn't have been enough.

Thinking of it, Yuel has been chewing me out about this habit every now and then but I just keep doing it. Lars rolled his eyes. It's like an instinct at this point, yo. Gotta polish that Slinger tech at all times! Or something.

Honestly, there wasn't any deep reason for these headshots. Lars just thought it was cool to always deliver headshots like that and he had the skill to pull it off, so he did it.

Every FPS game he ever played rewarded him handsomely for this habit. Lars deleted many unsuspecting enemies from existence with his 200% headshot accuracy!

Alas, Classmancers didn't respect this neat skill. Aside from Gunslinger, there weren’t many classes that cared about landing headshots. What a shame.

I shouldn’t have gone for the head there. Lars shook his head. But, what’s done is done. I just gotta land the next one and finish this, yo!

But, that was going to be easier said than done. Apprentece had already recovered from Drow’s slowdown debuff, so dude was now even faster on his feet.

To make things worse, the chase was quickly approaching the enemy’s tower area. At this rate, Apprentece might actually escape to safety!

But, of course I ain’t gonna let that happen! Lars aimed his laser gun again, this time at the target's back. With the next shot, he'll deliver that overdue killing blow and finally strike down the Korean pro that had been terrorizing the entire game!

No, wait. Lars paused right before pulling the trigger. I need to roll in first. He's barely within range and I don’t have the leeway to make any more mistakes.

Lars had to finish this here and now. He couldn't mess this up, no matter what. Nia’s sacrifice won’t be in vain, yo!

You’re going down dude…! However, just before he went for the roll, the world fell silent. Everything around him turned black. He could only see his Elf and the Appretence’s Orc. The rest of the world vanished from existence.

Lars's concentration peaked, erasing everything unnecessary from view. There was only him and his target in the entire world right now.

Oh, I know this feeling... Lars's body felt light, almost like he was floating. He was both relaxed and hyper-concentrated at the same time. Every cell in his body was focused on the important task at hand.

This rare feeling struck him every now and then during tense moments like this. It's like he entered the zone, yo.

His original plan was to roll forward and shoot Apprentece's back, but something about this didn’t sit right with him all of a sudden. He couldn’t quite explain this with words, but his instincts were ringing alarms in his head. That idea was no good in its current form.

He can also roll. I gonna miss. Lars somehow reached that conclusion. But okay, I got it.

Lars rolled in as planned, and then he fired a laser beam. On paper, this sounded exactly like his original plan. However, there was one small but important difference in the execution of the shot. It was something subtle that the opponent surely didn't see coming.

Here it is. Jin nodded. You sure took your sweet time with this shot, but now it's over.

He had been waiting for this very moment. This was Gunz's last chance to reliably score a kill here, as Jin was already about to reach the tower area. It was now or never.

So, I just have to dodge this shot and I'm in the green. Jin thought. It should be easy enough.

Shortly after hearing the ZAP of the laser beam, Jin rolled forward. Most likely, this decisive shot was not aimed at Jin's head like the previous one, therefore sidestepping it wasn't an option. There was no choice but to roll the shot.

Besides, rolling also brought Jin much closer to the tower, so it was like killing two birds with one stone. At least, that's what the roll should've achieved.

However, in the middle of the roll, something passed through Jin. A moment later, his Orc splattered across the floor like a ragdoll.

『You have been killed!』

"Hull!?" Jin blurted. What did just happen? … no, of course I know what happened, but... what?

Jin was in the middle of the roll back there. As such, no matter where Gunz aimed when he fired, the shot was bound to miss. After all, Jin rolled AFTER hearing the audio cue.

And yet, the laser beam hit him. As unbelievable as it was, his Orc was dead now, that’s a fact.

Did he realize my Dodge Roll came off cooldown? Is that why he shot it like that?

Against most opponents from the region, Jin would have disregarded a result like this as a fluke. But, Gunz was different. The guy’s mechanical skills, especially his accuracy, were the real deal.

No, this probably wasn't a happy accident. He aimed for it. Jin reasoned. He aimed toward the center of my body. From that angle, this shot would've probably hit me regardless of whether I rolled or not.

It was a slightly tilted shot aimed downwards. It could hit Jin’s center if he didn’t move, and it could also track Jin’s roll as long as it wasn’t too horizontal.

Tch. I considered rolling sideways but it seemed unnecessary. Jin frowned. I thought getting to the tower as fast as possible was optimal against an opponent of this level, but it turned out to be a misplay.

Against a higher caliber opponent, Jin would’ve likely given his roll more thought. If he did, then Gunz’s laser beam wouldn’t have hit him in a million years.

Alas, Jin went for the “simpler” play here, expecting pretty much nothing from his opponent. The tower area was right in front of him, so rolling directly toward it was the most attractive option.

Essentially, he was confident that any roll would wholly counter Gunz’s next shot, so there was no need to optimize anything further.

I underestimated him and I paid for it. Jin admitted. But really, who would’ve expected him to launch that kind of nasty attack?

Even back in Korea, few players would’ve gone for a low shot like that. Nine out of ten players there would’ve surely fired in a straight line to maximize speed and accuracy.

Then again, ten out of ten of them would’ve already finished me off earlier in a situation like this. They wouldn’t have gone for unnecessary headshots.

This made it difficult to rate Gunz as a player. His raw mechanical potential rivaled that of some of the strongest players Jin encountered back in Korea. Nonetheless, the guy lacked the same kind of discipline that was drilled into everybody in Korea, therefore he was unable to unlock his full potential.

He might have the potential to become a strong opponent one day. Jin thought. But, this stagnating environment doesn't do him any favors. Nobody can possibly reach their full potential in a lax environment like this. But, I digress.

In the end, no matter how Jin twisted it, he was killed. Yes, killed by these inferior players who grew up in this godforsaken stagnant environment.

This makes me look awful. Jin grimaced as he imagined his public image shattering into tiny pieces. If anybody from the Cleaners was monitoring Jin’s performance in this game, then they’d surely grill him for this amateur mistake. Then again, the values system of the West was quite different from Korea’s.

In Korea, a mistake like that during an exam would’ve resulted in immediate demotion. But, here? They might even let it slide, who knew?

Perhaps that was just wishful thinking on Jin’s end, but he sincerely believed he might be able to get away with something like this. Even the reactions of his teammates were lukewarm.

"My, how unfortunate," Cato said. "You almost got away. It really came down to the wire."

"... yes, it was close." Jin averted his eyes. He really didn't want to talk about this right now, yet Cato insisted on continuing. The guy just loved rubbing people’s failures into their faces, didn't he?

"I can't believe they caught you off-guard like that."

"It was reckless push. My mistake."

"Yes, it was reckless indeed.” Cato nodded. “Honestly, I'm surprised you went for something like that. Did Vanishing really disappear from your mind at the time?"

".........." Jin was stumped. No matter whether he replies "yes" or "no", it'll make him look bad.

If he admits that he failed to factor in Vanishing's position, it'll peg him as an amateur with bad map awareness. On the other hand, if Jin claims he didn't forget about Vanishing, then the whole push will come across as foolishly dangerous. There was simply no winning here.

"... for short moment there, I fail to consider the Jungler's position." Jin chose the middle ground between the two answers, which was pretty much the truth anyway. It was just a brief moment of negligence on his end, nothing more.

"My, that's quite interesting~" Cato was smiling for some reason. "Do you see, Sonya? Even the mighty Emperor managed to forget about Vanishing at some point. You have to admit that girl got something special going for her."

"Nonsense." Sonya pushed her glasses. "I kept delivering regular reports on her position, so I never forgot about her."

"My, is that so? Because I'm pretty sure your reports have been growing more scarce and irregular lately ~" 

This guy... Sonya scowled. How did he even notice that!?

Indeed, Sonya's surveillance was a bit inconsistent lately. She started out strong and delivered flawless periodic reports, but over time, those became less and less frequent.

It just started feeling like she was going a tad overboard. Many of her reports didn’t provide much information other than “Vanishing hasn’t been seen since last time”. This sort of empty report only felt distracting, honestly.

In the first place, VanishingFlower failed to establish herself as a threat that warranted this much attention from everybody at all times. What's more, constantly keeping tabs on Vanishing was lowkey hurting Sonya's performance in the lane, as well as her ability to maintain global map awareness. Therefore, she had no choice but to ease up a little on that surveillance gig.

For the most part, this had been working fine for the team. Sonya still methodically reported every instance in which she actually saw Vanishing rotating through the jungle.

Also, she made sure to at least occasionally deliver these “empty reports” just to make sure everybody was aware that Vanishing’s position was unknown. That much should’ve been more than enough, but…

Maybe I should've kept these reports a little more frequent after all. Sonya frowned. If I warned about Vanishing’s unknown position a little earlier, then Young-Jin could've made it out alive.

Despite keeping perfect track of Vanishing the entire game, it felt like Sonya “lost” at the very end there. She had been keeping that fake phantom under tight surveillance the whole time, yet at that critical moment, the ghost escaped and delivered a deadly assault.

Fortunately, it doesn't affect the game at large in this case. Sonya reassured herself. We've already won anyway, so this is just a small setback.

In all but name the Leopards had already won this game. It was just a matter of taking down the Colossus.

Nonetheless, the enemy team seems quite elated about this development. It was clear their morale skyrocketed after this kill, as they all started playing more confidently and aggressively.

Unfortunately for them, it was all going to come to nothing...